Tall Girl, Big Stomach: Favorite Eats This Week

I’ve spent the past week in Kassel, Germany with my friend and her family. We had a bunch of fun outings, which I’ll talk about next week, and we ate so much food. What I love about the German culture is that it’s more common to make homemade meals each night than it is to eat out. I always love cooking with friends, and this week was no exception. Here are a few photos of some of the new foods I tried. Let me know if you’ve had them as well, and tell me which one is your favorite!

Sorry for the poor lighting in this photo, but as you can see we baked a German-style cheesecake (Käsekuchen). It’s way different from the typical American New York style cheesecake that I’m used to. It’s a bit smaller, is made with quark instead of cream cheese, and has raisins inside. Oh, and did I mention that the crust tastes like a fluffy sugar cookie? There are many variations of this recipe, and I’d like to try and bake another type before I leave the land of quark.

My friend’s mom also made this yummy German dessert called Rote Grütze. It’s kind of like homemade jello with a lot of fresh cooked berries inside. I was excited to try this because I thought that jello wasn’t in Germany, but apparently all you have to do is make it yourself! We ate it with some vanilla sauce and it was mighty tasty.

I also got to help make Spätzle, which is a special type of noodle. All we had to do was make the dough, let it rise, and then put it directly into boiling water for a few minutes. So simple and so delicious. We ate our Spätzle with cheese and lots of onions, which I was told is the most common way of preparing these noodles.

Veering off the path of homemade goodies, I went into a Germany bakery with my friends and got a gigantic piece of Chocolate Cake (Torte). Cakes in Germany aren’t nearly as fluffy or sweet as American cakes, and have a bit more of a bread-like consistency to them. I happen to love them though and I had no problem devouring this entire slice,  buttercream, marmalade filling, and all!

There were also numerous food sightings on my part, and I of course had to take pictures of all the cool foods I saw. The first picture you see below was taken in a Markt in Frankfurt where we stopped for lunch one day. I just thought the fresh veggies were irresistible. The next photo is in the same Markt and it’s of a vegetable that’s part broccoli and part cauliflower. Have you guys ever seen one of these?? The last photo is of the bratwurst I ate in Melsungen (YOLO).

Do you guys also take pictures of your food while abroad? I can’t be the only one, can I?

Signing off,

Claire